


The Hunt

by IncurableNecromantic



Category: Looney Tunes | Merrie Melodies
Genre: F/M, Gen, Humanized AU, M/M, Meet the Family, RR's family speaks Spanish around the house, Superpowers, University AU, Wile E.'s parents are totally Bond villains, and overthinking, better living through being duplicitous, but what can you do, families are weird and make everything weird, life would be easier if we didn't have so many people sharing our blood, mutations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 04:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2296853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IncurableNecromantic/pseuds/IncurableNecromantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sociological examination of the family structure, and why you can't drive out East.</p><p>  <i>Sequel to Unattainable, inspired by <a href="http://silk-ward.tumblr.com/"> silk-ward's</a> <a href="http://silk-ward.tumblr.com/post/96507776269/this-is-my-new-obsession-well-really-its-old-and"> amazing fanart </a> imagining RR's family.  </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hunt

**Author's Note:**

> A Rhodes family tree, very valuable for this endeavor, can be found [here](http://bestdressedhotmess.tumblr.com/private/image/97348176950/tumblr_nbti6rHIZe1tguxct).

Here’s the deal: the only times Dr. Coyote ever completes an entire activity is because something else hasn’t distracted him too badly to keep him from seeing it through. This is the man who falls asleep halfway through undressing and sometimes sits perfectly still for twenty minutes with a fork poised at his lips, too absorbed in whatever he’s reading to eat his goddamn fajita.

There are pluses and minuses to that kind of thing. On the plus side, it’s super easy to get stuff past Doc, because RR can pretty much just gaslight him over conversations they haven’t actually had, and even though Dr. Coyote gives him that look that says he doesn’t believe RR, Dr. Coyote can’t prove it, so RR gets his way.

Dr. Coyote is all about proving stuff. RR wasn’t into it until he realized that it meant lots and lots of experiments, very few of them involving clothes. Then he started to be all about proving stuff, too.

Another plus side is that when Dr. Coyote gets shit done, it’s because he’s focusing really hard. And RR loves the way Dr. Coyote focuses, even when it’s not on him.

Although especially when it’s on him.

So when he comes in from work and finds Dr. Coyote's boots by the door but no Dr. Coyote in the kitchen or in the living room, his heart starts to pound. There are like thirty billion things that could distract Dr. Coyote between the front door and the bedroom, but since he’s not in either of the two most sociable rooms in the apartment, it’s a safe bet that that thirty billion has been whittled down to something more like one hundred thousand.

And one of those distractions might just be RR himself.

RR likes those odds.

He cautiously peeks in the bedroom and--fuck yeah--hits the jackpot.

Dr. Coyote falls asleep in the middle of undressing, but what he’s always aiming for is naked. He prefers to sleep naked, even in the winter. Maybe he just really likes his sheets or whatever. RR doesn’t care. He doesn’t investigate that kind of shit too deeply because why would you give a fuck about the sheets themselves when you could give potentially several fucks about the hot nerdy guy in the sheets?

So Dr. Coyote's in bed, naked, with his eyeglasses on and his laptop on his lap. Basically he looks like a sexy naked science babe, which is pretty much truth in advertising as far as RR is concerned, but the extra-good part is the fact that Dr. Coyote's eyes flick up and spot him as soon as he takes a step inside the room.

The extra-extra-good part is the fact that Dr. Coyote's eyes stay on him, and Dr. Coyote gives him this smile that’s like 75% wicked and wet-dreamy and 25% shy and hi-sweetheart. Dr. Coyote flicks his hand at the wrist and closes his laptop, setting it aside, and RR knows he’s got all of Dr. Coyote's attention. It’s like icing on the icing on the cake.

“Happy vacation,” Dr. Coyote says, pushing his hair back and up out of his eyes.

“Are you my vacation present?” RR asks. He’s already fussing with the fly of his uniform shorts.

Dr. Coyote snorts a little and looks at him over the rims of his glasses. “Very eager to unwrap me, I see.”

Just for that, RR zips over before Dr. Coyote's eyes can even widen in surprise and fits his mouth against Dr. Coyote's like an overzealous lamprey. Dr. Coyote's not used to it, man, almost eleven months in and he isn’t used to the way RR can move, and that’s super fucking hot.

He likes surprising Dr. Coyote. He likes keeping him on edge. If there were a little more leather and a little less dorky giggling in the bedroom it would almost be kinky but instead it’s just...them.

“Mmm,” Dr. Coyote says, reaching up to tangle his hand in RR’s dreads. The edge of Dr. Coyote's glasses press against RR’s face as they shift and tilt a little, getting closer.

“You’re home early,” RR purrs. “I thought I was going to have the place to myself.”

“They’ve locked me out of my lab,” Dr. Coyote says, huffing a little. “Fumigating, so they claim.” His jaw clenches a little and for a second he scowls.

RR is going to have to distract him or Dr. Coyote is going to get pissed thinking about it. He doesn’t like being apart from science for any length of time.

(Really, their relationship is basically a threesome. Dr. Coyote and Science are totally fucking married and RR is the sexy, nubile young thing that comes along and gets them both all hot and bothered. Dr. Coyote and Science conspire to fuck RR in so many interesting, delicious ways and RR wants Dr. Coyote and Science to stay together forever.)

“Poor baby,” RR coos, wriggling out of his uniform shirt. “Guess we’ll have to do it in the field, huh?”

“Hm,” Dr. Coyote replies, kissing his neck. “I’ll have to keep a log.”

Ooh, dirty love notes. Maybe even hot and heavy calculus. Stoichiometry gets him unconscionably hot these days and if he had just a little less self-esteem he might be mortified by his own behavior.

Fortunately, he has three things in abundance: speed, sex appeal, and self-esteem.

“Due diligence and et cetera,” RR purrs, sliding his shorts off of his legs and pulling the sheets off of his lover’s body. “And how long are you locked out? Can I expect to have you all to myself, all week long?”

He hopes he can hold onto Dr. Coyote all week. He has plans. Dr. Coyote thinks he hasn’t found the bundle of sexy comics Dr. Coyote keeps in one of the bookshelves, under a Journal of Neuroscience cover. The one with the evil scientist oh-so-slowly slicing the skintight costume off of the bound and captured alien hero and “torturing” him has given RR so many ideas for how they could very happily spend at least a few hours together.

Dr. Coyote strokes the back of RR’s neck and down between his shoulder blades. The touch is just light enough to tickle and RR shimmies his shoulders against it. Dr. Coyote smiles a little and kisses him on the mouth, sweet and soft and totally bereft of teeth. He must be feeling very gooey indeed.

“I wish,” Dr. Coyote sighs. “But I’m going to be out of town for a few days.”

“No,” RR moans. “Forget it. I’m not letting you go. I’ll tie you up and keep you here.”

Dr. Coyote's eyes gleam and oh, oh-ho yeah. They haven’t tried that yet; so far RR has been the only one all tied up. RR is pretty sure Dr. Coyote hid the handcuffs in the saucepan cabinet after last time, but there’s no time like the present…

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that,” Dr. Coyote says, kissing him slowly. “As much as I’d like to, I do have other obligations.”

“Like what?” RR is willing to put cash money on there being nothing actually more important than getting this man to bone him ASAP, so he’s confident that he can talk Dr. Coyote down.

“I’m going back home for a day or two,” Dr. Coyote sighs. “Honestly I’d rather wiggle out, but I haven’t been back in nearly three years and even I eventually feel the pressures of filial piety.”

“Nooo,” RR coos, sliding his hands down Dr. Coyote's chest and sides. “Stay here with me. We won’t do anything except stay in bed and cook and watch The X Files.” RR kisses his neck, nibbling ever so gently. “We’ll fight about which Star Trek is better and go on dates.”

“Mm,” Dr. Coyote purrs. He stretches his neck out a little, giving RR more leeway. “The Original Series.”

“Damn. I guess we won’t fight,” RR chirps, petting his way down towards Dr. Coyote's hips. “Let’s fuck, Spock.”

“Is it that easy? You won’t play even a bit of devil’s advocate? I’m almost disappointed,” Dr. Coyote teases, running a hand up RR’s thigh and tracing unreadable symbols on his skin with the tips of his fingers. Probably equations, but how would RR know? “And also I’m a McCoy right down to the bone.”

“Mm, fine, then I’ll be Spock,” RR murmured. “Stay here and give us a bit of Southern comfort.”

“Oh, charming…”

“Anything for you, my dear doctor.”

Dr. Coyote winces and grins. “Oh, ouch. Crossed references. That was almost physically painful.”

RR sighs and kisses down his neck. “Stupid sexy nerd boy,” he grumbles.

“You’re so very eager,” Dr. Coyote remarked, not sounding disappointed by that in the least. “You don’t want to quarrel at all. Has all the fight drained out of you?”

“I can’t play games with you. I’m not myself. I’m brokenhearted the thought of you abandoning me,” RR pouts. “Can you imagine? Left to rot while you skip town. Nothing to do but bother Bugs and send you obscene texts in the middle of family dinners.”

“Well, you could always come along,” Dr. Coyote proposes, and that’s pretty much it.

The beginning of the end.

Because Dr. Coyote proposes it so carefully. He hasn’t moved an inch from their earlier cheerful makeout puddle, but Dr. Coyote gets nervous over dumb stuff like holding hands at restaurants and giving RR books to read and, God, making sarcastic, bitchy, sexy 8tracks playlists for him. It’s awesome because RR knows exactly how much any given thing means to Dr. Coyote by how much third-grader-with-a-crush-style boot-shuffling Dr. Coyote does and he can respond with the appropriate amount of sincerity and delight to please. It’s also a complete pisser because RR is good at precisely two parts of a relationship: the sexy, frustrating, catch-me-if-you-can teasing, and the mad, passionate, take-your-prize fondling afterward.

Dr. Coyote is incredibly good at the dancing around each other part and the ravenous love-making part and it’s just fucking bliss, because RR has always wanted a relationship that was mostly about fucking with someone’s head, closely followed by fucking with someone’s body, and they’re about a year into whatever the hell this is and that dynamic has not worn off even a little bit. In his experience, those parts should only exist in the beginning of any love affair, but they’ve just lasted and lasted. By now his partner should be a known and thoroughly explored quantity, the fascination exhausted. By now RR should be bored and unsatisfied, looking out for something new.

He’s not. Dr. Coyote's still fascinating and still fiery and it’s heavenly.

But Dr. Coyote's good at a third part of this, and it’s that thing that carves out 25% of his smile for hi-sweetheart expressions. Dr. Coyote's good at cuddling with him while they watch Netflix and he’s good at texting him during the day, just to talk. Dr. Coyote's good at making vegetarian dishes for him and charging his phone when he forgets and listening to him when he starts bitching about the glamorous life of a delivery boy and how he thinks he should quit.

RR doesn’t really know how to do that stuff. Like, yeah, he likes Doc, a lot, more than pretty much anyone else. And he knows he’s self-centered, but he does try and keep an eye out for stuff Dr. Coyote likes, but he hasn’t got Dr. Coyote's touch. Sometimes he can read Dr. Coyote like a book and he knows what to do to please him and validate him, but he doesn’t have that romantic-genius spark that makes Dr. Coyote come up with this shit.

RR wonders if he’s aromantic. He’s pretty sure he’s not, just because wow, he is super gooey over his man, but just because you feel something doesn’t mean you’re any good at doing anything about it.

Anyway, Dr. Coyote's asked him something and it’s obvious that it’s a big deal. RR knows what he has to do.

“Oh? Is this when I finally get to meet the parents?” he smiles, kissing the tip of Dr. Coyote's nose.

Dr. Coyote immediately relaxes, releasing tension RR hadn’t even noticed accumulating. “Well, if you would like to. I’m sure they’d like to meet you. I’ve mentioned you before.”

“Yeah? Told them you had a hot boyfriend?”

“Something like that,” Dr. Coyote murmurs. So shy. So cute.

“Yeah?” RR kisses his nose again, and his mouth, and just under his jaw. “D’you tell them you had to physically restrain me to keep me from making you play Phone Moan the last time you called them?”

“I did not,” Dr. Coyote grumbles, leaning up to nibble at his neck a bit.

RR smiles and rolls his hips against Doc’s. “Yeah,” RR says, grinning as Dr. Coyote's hands fall on his hips. “I’ll come along. Why not? It’ll be fun.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yeah.”

“All right,” Dr. Coyote said, and it’s just a hi-sweetheart smile, nothing wicked about it. “I’ll buy you a ticket.”

“Ooh, sugar daddy,” RR grins. “Mama always said I should look for a doctor. They make the big bucks.”

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” Dr. Coyote murmurs, the wickedness creeping back into his mouth.

“You’re halfway that kind of doctor.” And really, it’s for the best that he didn’t become a medical doctor, after all. Not only might they never have met, but Dr. Coyote is so much more suited to a life of supervillainy and a successful career in medicine would just get in the way. RR’s trying to gently push his career in that direction. Sooner or later RR figures he’ll finally snap and use his speed to save people for fun and profit, and there’s no one he’d rather have as a sexy nemesis than Dr. Coyote.

“Where were you when I was studying gross anatomy?” Dr. Coyote sighs, catching him in a kiss and sliding down the bed.

RR follows, eager to take his mind off of the one problem with the current plan. It can totally wait--c.f. nothing being more important than getting this man to bone him--but the problem with going to New Mexico is already a couple of months old.

It’s Telah’s fault. She’d been a freshly-minted mommy and had been going completely insane, broody as a hen, and when her loving brother had given her a call just to check base, she’d tried to extract a pound of flesh.

 _“Abijah and Elizabeth and Amadeus and Sebastian and Flavia and Flavia’s husband and Hypatia are all coming. And Uncle Absalom and Aunt Elena and Aunt Tabitha and Uncle José,”_ Telah’d said in a rapid burst of Spanish. _“And all our cousins, mostly, and Uncle Jethro might come, too.”_

 _“I know. I just can’t get over there,”_ he’d said, and at the time it had been true. _“It’s expensive--”_

_“We’ll pay the fare!”_

_“And I can’t take the time off of work.”_ At the time, that had been true, too.

_“Ugh. Ryker. We miss you.”_

_“I miss you guys, too.”_ And he did.

_“And you know Grandpa and Grandma are getting old. Who knows how much longer they’ll be around?”_

_“Wait. What? Are they okay? Is anything happening?”_

_“No, no, they’re fine. Just old. I’m just saying, they’re old.”_

_“God. Don’t scare me like that.”_

_“Sorry. But you belong with us...you should at least come see your first nephew.”_

_“I want to see the kid. I just can’t come to this particular reunion. But I’ll see if I can do something closer to Christmas.”_

Telah had sighed. _“Fine. But you better Skype in, okay?”_

_“Okay.”_

But now, oh, he knows it’s going to get ugly. Because his life is not so much ironic as it is driven by narrative necessity, if he sets foot in his home state he is sure that somehow, some way, they’ll find him.

And that would probably still be true even if Abijah were not a telepath.

It’s not that RR doesn’t love his family. He does! God, he does. Well, except for Hypatia. Mostly, they’re fun and they’re just like him, each a little gifted, and even though they’re super nosy jerkwads sometimes, they love him dearly and take pains to express it.

But he isn’t sure Dr. Coyote is ready for them. They can be a little...much. And just because Dr. Coyote seriously digs on him and his speed doesn’t mean he’ll be comfortable on an isolated farm populated entirely by mutants.

(Flip side of that is he knows that the mere fact that he has his abilities turns Dr. Coyote on, let alone the abilities themselves. What if that extends to the rest of his family? If he’s totally honest, he has had a nightmare or two about Dr. Coyote being hot for his dad. He would not survive the horror.)

But even though healthy, straightforward communication is in absolutely no way a linchpin of their relationship, he knows that if he doesn’t say anything to Dr. Coyote, this will come back to bite him in some kind of disgustingly predictable way. And he’s always sworn that he’ll never be predictable.

He isn’t ready to ask it, but he wakes Dr. Coyote up from a post-boning doze by scratching his back and murmuring “Do you want to come to my family reunion?” against his neck.

Dr. Coyote sighs and stretches back into his hands and when he speaks RR can hear his smile. “Mm. Certainly. When is it?”

RR winces. “This week.”

“...ah.”

“You can’t just stop there.” He hadn’t intended to be on pins and needles over this but now he was.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You can’t just say ‘ah’ and stop talking. What do you mean, ‘ah’?”

“Truly nothing. I suppose I’m only wondering why you didn’t want to go visit them.”

“What makes you think I didn’t want to?”

“I expect you would have made some travel plans of your own, if you’d had any such intention.” Dr. Coyote rolls over onto his belly and stretches, looking at RR with a placid, quietly calculating stare.

“Well, I do want to, but I didn’t intend to go. And now that we’ll be in that neck of the woods anyway…” RR shrugs and traces Dr. Coyote's spine with the tip of his finger. “Just a thought.”

“I would like to go. I would consider it an honor,” Dr. Coyote says, not even all that sarcastic. He smiles slightly and curves himself to follow the path of RR’s touch.

“Good,” RR says.

***

_“Telah?”_

_“Ryker? Hi. What’s up?”_

_“I can make it to the reunion after all. Can you make room for me?”_

_“Yes! Of course! Oh, this is great news! Everybody will be so happy!”_

_“Great! Good. Um. And I’m bringing a plus-one, so fair warning.”_

_“Oh yeah?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Well, well…”_

_“Shut up.”_

_“That’s new!_ ”

_“Shut up.”_

_“Anybody I knooow?”_

_“No.”_

_“Anybody Drake knows?”_

_“No. Well. Maybe. Dentists like science, right?”_

_“Sort of.”_

_“Maybe, then. I’ll bring him and you can all meet him there.”_

_“Oh, so it’s a him?”_

_“Fuck off, Telah.”_

_“I’m getting all your baby pictures ready!”_

_“Fuck off!”_

***

They rent a car at the Santa Fe airport. Dr. Coyote looks at a Volvo for much too long a time and RR just barely drags his attention to a Mustang convertible.

“No.”

“But just imagine it,” RR wheedles. “The wind in your hair. The sun on your skin.”

“The dust in your eyes. The bugs up your nose,” Dr. Coyote replies. “Besides, I’m too old. This smacks of mid-life crisis.”

“Nonsense,” RR purrs, running his hands over the smooth-as-butter leather seats. “Think about it, Doctor. This can get up to 180 miles per hour.”

“I’m not seeing your point.”

RR glances at the rental attendant, who is standing away beneath the awning of the shop. “It’s almost four hours to Oscura Peak. You can race me.”

Dr. Coyote pauses for an instant, before shaking his head. “No. Unfortunately, I can’t.”

“What? Why?”

“Because that’s only about 290 kilometers per hour,” Dr. Coyote frowns, “and you go more than three times that fast when you’re trotting.”

“So I’ll wear my lead shoes,” RR reasons. “Come on, it’s delicious. Live a little.”

Dr. Coyote sighs but he doesn’t cast the Volvo a second glance as he ambles back into the shop. RR hops over the door and settles it, stretching his legs out as he wriggles against the gorgeous upholstery.

Dr. Coyote comes back with the keys and slips into the driver’s seat. “Ah. Before I forget, how do you want to be introduced?”

“What?”

“To my parents. How would you like me to introduce you?”

“How did you explain to them that I was coming?”

“I said I was bringing the man I was seeing.”

“So there you go,” RR shrugs.

“No. I mean, your name.”

“What? Dr. Coyote. Just tell them what you call me.” RR pushes his sunglasses up his nose. “Quit bein’ weird.”

Dr. Coyote pulls out of the parking lot and waits until they get to a stop light before lighting a cigarette. “All right. But I asked.”

It’s a ten minute drive out to the eastern side of the city and then Dr. Coyote hangs a left right into the driveway of a palace.

“No,” RR says. “I refuse to believe this.”

“Oh, it gets worse,” Dr. Coyote says with grim good cheer. “Come on.”

RR hops out of the car. Okay, so it’s not a palace, exactly, but only because it only has one storey. It’s a sprawling house, severely geometrical and built all in adobe, glass, and steel. It’s got to be 5,000 square feet and RR can smell the chlorine from a pool in the air. Dr. Coyote pulls their bags out of the back of the car and walks up to the art-deco red-iron front gate and pushes it open.

“After you.”

They walk through a garden of paradoxically-lush scrub plants and RR can barely keep his mouth from gaping open.

“Oh my God. You’re rich as shit.”

“Incorrect,” Dr. Coyote says. His fingers twitch and RR is tempted to take one of his cigarettes for his own suddenly-jangling nerves. “My parents are rich as shit.”

“I’m a gold-digger.”

“No.”

“I’m a gold-digger and I didn’t even know it.”

Dr. Coyote leads the way up to the door and unceremoniously opens it. He halts in the doorway, turning to look at RR.

“Oh. I forgot to ask,” he smiles sheepishly. “Do you like dogs?”

Once, RR had liked dogs. He’d even had his share of sheep dogs on the farm, puppies to cuddle and play fetch with.

That was before he became a delivery technician and had learned the hard way that just because he liked dogs didn’t mean dogs liked him. He’d had to jump over his fair share of fences and from the sound of rampaging paws within Casa del Coyote, just because he could outrun these monsters didn’t mean they wouldn’t try and hunt him down, anyway.

Three mastiffs came barrelling out of the house, barking like thunder and knocking Dr. Coyote to the ground. Dr. Coyote goes down with an ‘oof,’ immediately being devoured by slobbery tongues and wagging tails.

RR goes rigid and tense and tries to play dead.

Dr. Coyote grabs two of the dogs by the neck and gently pushes them away, managing to sit up and wipe his face on his sleeve. “Good! That’s good. Just let them sniff you.”

The third mastiff edges over towards RR and growls softly.

RR starts to pray.

He is rescued by a sound from inside the house: the crisp noise of someone clicking their fingers.

Three dog butts hit the floor, three attentive heads jerking center and staring out into space.

“Honestly, doctor,” a weary, feminine voice remarks. “You should have rung the doorbell.”

Two snaps, and the dogs hurry into the house. A woman in her late middle age appears at the door, steel gray hair bound up on her head in a French twist. She has Dr. Coyote's cheekbones and something of the wry twist of his mouth.

“Ma’am,” Dr. Coyote said, hopping to his feet. He actually bows, just a little, and leans in to run his cheek along hers, kissing the air beside her ear. She smiles slightly and closes her eyes, reaching up to touch his other cheek.

“Hello,” she says quietly, and then her eyes flick open and catch RR. “Introduce me.”

Dr. Coyote dips his head. “Ma’am, I’d like to introduce Mr. Ryker Rhodes. RR, this is my mother, Ambassador Eleanor Coyote.”

“What a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rhodes,” the Ambassador says, extending her hand to him. For a second RR is terrified that she expects him to kiss her knuckles, but it becomes a handshake without too much trauma on either side. “Welcome to our home. Please, come in.”

“Oh, thank you,” RR says. He begins to gnaw the inside of his cheek as soon as she turns around. Dr. Coyote didn’t warn him about any of this.

Asshole.

Dr. Coyote's hand settles on the small of his back. “Are you all right?”

RR makes a soft noise like an over-boiling pot.

“She likes you,” Dr. Coyote says, and pushes him inside.

They step into the air-conditioning and stand in the foyer with their bags. The inside of the house is a severely minimalist paradise, all white leather sofas and light, airy emptiness. The huge windows take up whole walls and RR wonders how anyone can feel comfortable with so little privacy. There isn’t any hair or stain to provide the merest trace of the dogs’ habitation, but that doesn’t necessarily surprise him--if he was a dog, he wouldn’t dare do anything to displease the lady of the house, either. The only scraps of personality whatsoever are a few tasteful objets d’art of obviously South Western origin.

“I’ve tidied up the guest room for you both,” the Ambassador says. “If you’d like to refresh yourselves I’m sure you know the way. The Professor is in his study,” she adds, consulting her watch. “He has been effusive in his desire to see you and will be glad to know that you have arrived.”

“Thank you.”

The Ambassador nods. “Unless you would like a tour, I have a few more emails I need to send out. Cocktails at five o’clock, doctor.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Coyote says, a little more earnestly. “I’m sure I can show RR around in the meantime.”

The Ambassador smiles and looks at her son with unimpassioned but undisguised fondness. “Very well. Mr. Rhodes, please make yourself at home.”

She leaves them in the hallway and Dr. Coyote gestures for RR to follow him. RR’s already reeling from such a cool reception, and follows mutely as Dr. Coyote navigates a corridor of steel light fixtures and beautiful pale hardwood.

One door is slightly cracked and Dr. Coyote knocks on it softly.

“Enter,” a gruff voice says.

If the room is a study, Dr. Coyote's lab is a shoebox. In one corner there is a riot of eccentric glassware, presumably for chemistry, and in another there are several terrariums containing plants, starfish, and little swimming salamanders.

The walls are lined with books and decorated with astronomic charts and geographic maps. A man with a shock of white hair and Dr. Coyote's nose is sitting at a desk, squinting through a magnifying glass at a book.

“Yes?” the man asks, focused on the book.

“Do you have a moment, sir?” Dr. Coyote asks quietly.

The man’s head spins around and he spots Dr. Coyote. The man sits back in his seat and something like a smile appears on his mouth. “Ah, yes. Madam Ambassador mentioned you’d be here today.”

Dr. Coyote smiles.

“That was the dogs I heard, then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They always liked you, Will,” the man says. “But I’m being rude,” he adds, glancing at RR.

Dr. Coyote turned to him and waves between them. “Sir, this is Mr. Ryker Rhodes. RR, this is Professor Craft T. Coyote, my father.”

“Hello,” RR says. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Charmed,” the Professor says. He gets up from his seat with some difficulty and hobbles over, offering his hand. “Doctor Coyote’s mentioned you, I believe. Very taken with you.”

Dr. Coyote says nothing to confirm or deny that and RR takes the Professor’s hand with a cheeky grin. “Oh, really?” RR says slyly. “He doesn’t let much slip to me about that.”

“I admit I’m surprised to hear that,” the Professor says, eyeballing his son a bit. “Doctor Coyote has always been very demonstrative.”

RR barks out a laugh, even as he realizes that that’s probably not a joke, not by these people’s standards.

“I trust you’re on your way to the guest room?” the Professor asks.

“Yes, sir. The Ambassador mentioned cocktails at five o’clock.”

“Of course. I have yet to miss a cocktail hour in these forty years. I shall see you then.”

They were unambiguously dismissed, so Dr. Coyote leads them the rest of the way to the guest room.

It is a big, beautiful, clean room with a massive bed, a walk-in closet, and a gorgeous view of the mountains. It is all lost on RR, who flops onto the bed and covers his face with his hands.

“Oh my God,” he moans. “You didn’t warn me!”

“What?” Dr. Coyote asks. He is sitting in an armchair, undoing the top buttons of his shirt.

“All you said was that you were from New Mexico! That you thought everyone wore cowboy boots when you were six! You didn’t say your parents were...were...Bond villains!”

“Oh, please,” Dr. Coyote grumbles. “That’s not true.”

“It is! Like, whose parents call each other by their titles?”

“Well, mine. And I’m sure many royal families do, sometimes.”

“Not anymore! And that’s not a good comparison, anyway! They don’t even call you by your name!”

“Didn’t you hear? Dad called me ‘Will.’ Mom was right--he must have missed me. I’m sort of touched.”

RR sits up and stares at him. “Do you only call them ‘Mom and Dad’ in private?”

“Yes,” Dr. Coyote says. “It would be rude, otherwise.”

RR flops back on the bed. “When did this even start?”

“Well, Dad’s never much liked his name, as you can probably guess...no more than I like mine, honestly. So instead of having my mother call him ‘Craft’ all the time, at some point they started calling each other by their titles. I remember them calling each other Mr. Coyote and Mrs. Coyote when I was a kid.”

“But...why didn’t your dad just change his name?”

“Family tradition.”

RR rolls his eyes. “And I guess that’s why you get called ‘doctor,’ right? Because you have a name you don’t like, either.”

“Well, they used to call me Mr. W. E. Coyote to distinguish me from my brother, but once I got my first doctorate that changed. I wish Mom had budged a little sooner when it came to our names. I got stuck with the burden of the first-born. My siblings got pretty normal names, and I’m stuck with ‘Wile.’”

They’re all freaks, and the expression of that fact is on the tip of RR’s tongue. Like, just name your kid something else, fuck the weird stupid naming tradition. You shouldn’t have to be called by your title your whole life to have even a little dignity.

But he swallows all that back when he glances over and sees the tense line of Dr. Coyote's shoulders. He knows that being here and seeing so much of Dr. Coyote's life is a big deal. If RR was just his slam piece or whatever, they never would have gotten to this point. Dr. Coyote's being really vulnerable and open with him. There’s a lot to hurt here, and he always wants to torture but he never wants to actually wound.

“Okay,” RR shrugs, helpless. “Fair enough.”

Dr. Coyote heaves a sigh and lets it go, rolling the back of his neck against his hand. “There’s a bathtub in the next room,” he murmurs.

RR perks up. “Whirlpool?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Oh. Yes.”

Well. Might as well embrace the gold-digging while he was here.

***

Between slipping into the bathtub with his favorite hot naked science babe and sitting down to dinner at the long dining table, RR learns that the Ambassador first got her doctorate in Abnormal Psychology and enjoyed a five year career before switching suddenly to juggle an International Political Science doctorate and a burgeoning love affair with the then-Vice President of Scientific Solutions.

Fifteen years, sixteen countries, one CEO-ship, and three children later, the Professor sold Scientific Solutions to ACME, became the Head Researcher in their science department, and made what Dr. Coyote demurely refers to as “a bit” and RR understands to mean “really ridiculous bank, just totally laughable amounts of money.” The Professor left ACME in another ten years, taking his patents with him, and became a real university professor.

Dr. Coyote must have warned the Ambassador about RR’s diet because his is the only plate that isn’t dominated by an enormous steak.

“Madam Ambassador,” the Professor says, “would you please pass the salt?”

“Of course, Professor,” the Ambassador replies, sending the condiment down. “Mr. Rhodes? Doctor? Any more of anything?”

“No, thank you, ma’am.”

“Um, no.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, if I may: how is Glory?” His sister, Glory S. RR has always suspected that Dr. Coyote had some siblings squirreled away somewhere.

“Ms. Coyote is doing very well, I’m given to understand,” the Professor says. “More peas?”

Dr. Coyote nods, eager both for peas and to accept that vague answer as sufficient. Maybe he read more in it than RR did. “Thank you. And Warren?”

The air in the room changes perceptibly. The Ambassador and the Professor look at each other and Dr. Coyote straightened up a little.

“Mr. W. T. Coyote has not been in touch with us in some time,” the Ambassador says, very diplomatically. “We believe he was last in St. Louis. We are looking for the last young lady he told us about.”

“Oh yes. Sandra.”

“Yes.”

Dr. Coyote frowns a little. “I’ll keep an ear to the ground.”

“Thank you,” the Professor says.

RR just squirms. What the hell. What kind of people don’t stay in touch enough to warn each other when one of their own goes missing?

Dinner is cleared away by mutual shuffling and the Professor and the Ambassador turn on professional tennis. Dr. Coyote sits himself down in one of the white leather loveseats and RR sits beside him, confused, uncomfortable, and bored.

It’s a very quiet night. There’s no more conversation, not until about nine o’clock when the Ambassador and the Professor announce that they’re going to bed. Dr. Coyote rises and bows just a little to them, saying, “Good night,” and RR echoes the sentiment from his seat.

They smile politely and disappear into their chambers within the palace, three dogs shuffling after them.

“They’re looking really well,” Dr. Coyote murmurs in their absence. He rubs his hand up and down RR’s back for a few seconds. “How are you?”

He’s not well. God, if this is Dr. Coyote's idea of a warm family evening, he is going to get thrown under the bus completely. At a Rhodes family party, by nine o’clock they’ve only just opened the third wine case and gotten a dance floor cleared. They haven’t watched the NewsHour and clucked disappointedly and hummed contentedly over tennis and declared it a full day.

Hell, they’ve said things by now, greeted each other, teased each other, actually said what was on their minds, hugged and touched and kissed. Not this unconcerned, aloof pseudo-interaction.

He abruptly does not want to be here. He wants to be at home, in bed, or in the bathtub, with a glass of wine. He isn’t even certain he wants Dr. Coyote physically there with him--he just wants to be somewhere where it’s easy to be happy, where the fine expectation of impending chase-and-catch encounters with his doctor is happiness itself. This is so real, suddenly, and he knows that there must be dozens of unspoken expectations about to drop on his shoulders, and he wants what they had a few days ago, before Dr. Coyote invited him along.

It’s going to get serious, he just knows it. He never wanted it to be serious. Maybe he wants them to be "forever," maybe that he could just possibly somehow handle, but not "serious."

He doesn’t want to know these things about Dr. Coyote. They’re in terra incognito, and without the protective bubble of playful torment and happy frustration their daily life provides, these are just weird, sad, steile things to know.

This is fucking awful.

“I’m fine,” he says instead.

“They must seem a little quiet,” Dr. Coyote says softly. “But I guess the same could be said of us.”

No, it can’t. Because they aren’t quiet. Not literally and not figuratively. Not together, and not separately. Together, they’re the best kind of fight, an interrogation gone wonderfully, deliciously wrong, their faux-antagonism and half-lies and secrets about inconsequentials pulling and pushing them together and apart, the tension keeping them on the razor’s edge of heaven. They see each other, they know each other’s value and potential, and they construct obstacles and tests and challenges for each other accordingly, waiting to see what the other will do, what shape the chase will take next. Even when they’re peaceful, calm in their slightly-twisted and love-bitten equivalent of domesticity, it’s just a quick breather from the competition, the fight they love. Their silences hum.

And separately? Dr. Coyote's got a mind that doesn’t stop, a brain that has him doodling on all the paper products in the place and writing in whiteboard marker on the shower tiles and jerking awake and scribbling frantically in the middle of the night, brain electrocuted by a subconscious lightning bolt of genius.

And RR’s got too much of an appetite, too much energy coiled in him to sit still, a rapid heartbeat that has him racing up and down all the stairs just to burn off steam, going out dancing until dawn, playing music loud enough to make the walls throb, talking incessantly, fingers flying across his phone keyboard.

They aren’t quiet. Silence and stillness are an unbearable cage, now that he’s found someone who will listen and question and chase his every evasion.

He needs so very much to be chased and he knows what he needs to do to get it, but he can’t do it here. He doesn’t want to run from Dr. Coyote here, to hint and dodge, when there’s nothing but unpursued hints and dodges in this house full of people who don’t call each other by their names. Dr. Coyote doesn’t run down any of them, doesn’t question any of them, doesn’t push them.

This is what happens when Dr. Coyote knows something. When he's figured it out, he just lets it go.

What if they go out to the farm and Dr. Coyote crashes headlong into all the things he’s been chasing RR over? What if the mystery curls up and cracks open and Dr. Coyote gets whatever it was he started chasing RR over, and sees how it wasn’t all that much to wonder about in the first place? What if the universe waves the checkered flag and the race is over, just two losers and no more tension between them?

Dr. Coyote suddenly slaps him on the flank and leaps to his feet. “Come on.”

RR lifts his eyebrows. “What?”

“Come on. The guest room used to be my bedroom,” Dr. Coyote says. “We’re going to sneak out and smoke on the roof.”

RR rolls his eyes, even though a smile pulls at his lips. “Ooh, edgy. You know how to show a guy a good time.”

“Unimpressed?”

“Completely.”

“Well, come along nevertheless. We’ll see if getting out through the window inspires me to something more interesting.”

***

Santa Fe wasn’t a particularly happening town but they could get a cocktail with relative ease before heading out of the city limits and into the desert.

Dr. Coyote had a truly huge collection of girly pop music and now cranks California Girls as they burn down the road under the vast, starlit sky. RR leans back in the convertible and holds his arms up, letting the cool, dry air run over his skin. He had missed this place, this world.

Dr. Coyote buries the needle, churning 50 miles out of town and wearing an exhilarated smile RR didn’t see nearly often enough.

“This is what cars were made for,” Dr. Coyote shouts over Katy Perry’s voice. “Granted, the East has hills and that makes driving interesting, but I don’t really need a car, so I don’t get to take advantage of that. And without the flat land, you just can’t get any real acceleration, anyway.” He steps harder on the accelerator, visibly shivering as the machine roared beneath him.

RR laughs and reaches down to put his hand on Dr. Coyote’s thigh. “Is that the stick shift or are you just happy to see me?”

“Nothing sexier than a tight, fast, powerful machine,” he replies.

RR’s about to challenge that, when the car begins to decelerate. Dr. Coyote veers off onto the shoulder and parks. “This should do.”

RR sits up a little straighter and looks around. Here they are, in scenic fucking Nowhere, USA. “Okay. What’s the plan?”

“I’m going to sit here and let you run,” Dr. Coyote replies, lighting a cigarette. In the starlit dark, the match flares like a tiny orange sun.

“Let me run? Are you taking me out for exercise? Am I your puppy?”

“It’s been known to happen,” Dr. Coyote replies in a soft rumble and RR’s knees tremble.

“I have a better plan,” RR says. “I’ll run, but only if you do, too.”

“I can’t catch you on foot. You know that.”

“True. But if I keep it down, you could catch me in the car. We’ll play tag.”

Dr. Coyote shakes his head. “No. It could endanger you. Just because you’re fast doesn’t mean you’re impervious to being hit by a car.”

“But I can get out of the way.”

“There’s no way of guaranteeing that. And besides, you’ll always catch me, anyway. There’s no point in playing tag.”

“Fine. Don’t chase me,” RR sighs. “Just run with me. Please? Alongside me.”

Dr. Coyote considers that for a moment, before getting in the car. RR grins and bounces on his toes, watching Dr. Coyote take a drag of his cigarette. “Ready?”

“Set, go!” RR chirps, and tears off down the road. He’s not even pushing it, not tonight, since he does really want to be caught. He can still hear the muffled grumbling of his pursuer and the churning of the car engine. He hears the roar behind him, faint but growing, and he nearly laughs with the joy of it.

It’s cool and dark, and there’s nothing around for miles and miles except flat land, distant mountains, and high, dark sky. The stars have been out for hours and he can see them rising above him, bright and clear. The sky reaches down to wrap around the horizon--at any moment, he might run so fast he’ll lift off and fall upwards into space.

The world is empty here, wasted. It’s so dark, and behind him he hears the approaching engine and knows that soon the headlights will lick his heels. It’s like something out of a horror movie, or it would be if he was a terrified damsel and not a man playing strange, wonderful games with his lover. His heart is thundering and he abruptly wishes that Dr. Coyote was just a little more mad, so that this would be a real chase and not just a run together.

But he can pretend.

In time, the vehicle catches up. They burn alongside each other, and it’s false, of course, since RR can run a hundred circles around the car in the time it would take to move an inch. But Dr. Coyote knows that, knows him, and they’re alone together under the sky, out for a run together like no other couple in the world.

Someday he’s going to pick Dr. Coyote up and just blaze across the ground, just to see how the doctor would take it.

Not today, though.

***

They spend two more days with the Ambassador and the Professor, and RR feels like he wants to slit his own wrists only occasionally.

The Ambassador gets them opera tickets and the Professor takes them to the bug museum. They visit sculpture gardens and have dinners in nice restaurants. It’s undeniably pleasant and it’s also so boring RR thinks he might throw up. Watching them, he completely understands why Dr. Coyote went East; anything to get away from this flat, quiet world that fits him like a bad suit. That’s probably what attracted him to Bugs in the first place, come to think of it--their mutual friend is not what one might call tight-lipped.

Hearing him called “doctor” all the time makes RR wonder if he’d like it if RR called him “Wile.” Somehow he thinks not.

 _“When are you coming?”_ Telah demands, waking him up one morning. RR slips out from Dr. Coyote’s arm and staggers into the bathroom, trying not to wake him up.

 _“We’re leaving today,”_ he replies, squinting at himself in the mirror. He looks like a hot mess, but so does the rest of the world after having been awoken at the crack of What the Fuck Time is It. _“Jesus Christ, Telah, who calls people at six in the morning?”_

 _“New mothers,”_ Telah replies. _“God, just take the stupid boob.”_

_“Excuse me?”_

_“Rev isn’t hungry,”_ Telah grumbles. _“First he won’t shed his babyblue, now he’s too good for his mother’s tits. Picky child.”_

 _“Well, we know he probably doesn’t that from his father,”_ RR mutters, trying to get his hair together. He might as well shower and get dressed, after this. Maybe he can drop a wet washcloth on Dr. Coyote’s face and watch him flail his limbs.

The idea perks him up considerably.

_“Get what?”_

_“Disdain for your breasts.”_

_“Oh, gross,”_ Telah groans. _“So gross.”_

_“I’ll call you when we’re getting close.”_

_“Good. Tell your boyfriend he’s going to hold a baby because Mommy needs some down-time.”_

_“I’ll be sure to mention that.”_

The wet washcloth to the face goes over like wet washcloths to the face usually do, but the growling and giggling aftermath leads to some very welcome roughhousing in the shower, so that’s all right.

After breakfast, the Ambassador and the Professor and the three mastiffs see them to the car. Dr. Coyote shakes hands with his father and brushes cheeks with his mother, and that is apparently enough.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Rhodes,” the Ambassador says graciously, bowing her head to him.

“And you, ma’am. Thank you for your hospitality.”

The Ambassador and the Professor turn and walk back into the house, her hand tucked in the crook of his arm.

“Yeah,” RR says quietly, as Dr. Coyote starts the car.

“Hm?”

“You really are demonstrative,” he remarks, shaking his head.

“Thank you?” Dr. Coyote murmurs, and pulls out of the driveway.

Once they’re out of the city, Dr. Coyote stops so RR can get out and stretch his legs. RR makes sure Dr. Coyote knows how to get where he’s supposed to go, before giving him half a dozen quick kisses and taking off.

He’s home in under a minute. The little compound of houses and gardens looks exactly like he remembers it, a little old and a little worn, but serviceable and safe.

He doesn’t want to let Mom or Dad know he’s here just yet, so he tries to find Telah before anything else goes down. Abijah probably knows he’s here already, but RR’s oldest brother got all the family tact along with the ability to read minds and won’t say anything. It’s early enough that most people are probably still asleep.

Grandman Agnes is in the kitchen making breakfast so he steals through the front door as silently as he can. He darts up the stairs too quickly to make a sound, glancing in the living room on the way. Amadeus and Sebastian, the twins, are crashed out on the fold-out sofa and Aunt Theodora is still comfortably curled up in one corner of the living room ceiling, snoring. Flavia and her husband, Octavian, are probably in the downstairs bedroom.

On the second floor, he can hear his father’s thunderous snores from his parents’ bedroom. The bedroom he’d shared with his brothers is cracked just enough that he can see Hypatia flopped across in his bed, with Cousin Ruth and Cousin Esther taking the others. He can’t leave for one second; Hypatia always has to take his stuff, God. The urge to go and give her a Wet Willie is almost overpowering, but he’s got shit to do.

Nobody’s in the attic, so RR dashes back out and checks out the other house. He can see Aunt Tabitha and Uncle José through the master bedroom window, and Uncle Jethro is in the kitchen, boiling the coffee water with one hand.

He sneaks through the front door, spotting Uncle Absalom and Aunt Elena on the sofa bed. Upstairs, Amaranta, Inez, and Pilar are in one room and Asa and his wife, Philippa, are in the other. Pedro’s crashed out on an air mattress in the hallway. Amaranta’s hair has frozen to her pillow and RR bumps into one of Pedro’s sleep-induced force fields in the hallway, but the sight of his cousins make him smile.

Naomi’s in the bathtub, sleeping peacefully and making little bubbles as she snores.

That’s everybody.

Except Telah.

On a whim he checks the basement of the house and sure enough, there she is.

She grins when she sees him and opens her mouth to greet him, but he grabs her and covers her lips with his hand.

 _“No one’s supposed to know I’m here yet,”_ he insists. _“Don’t blow my cover.”_

 _“Oh my God, you’re ridiculous,”_ she sighs. _“Fine. Why are you sneaking around?”_

_“Where’s Drake?”_

_“Taking Rev out for some fresh air. Now, why are you sneaking around?”_

RR wipes his hands on his shorts. _“How did you break it to Drake?”_

She has the decency not to ask “break what?” _“I just told him that my family is a lot like me and that they were excited to meet him.”_

And they had been. Telah was the eldest of all the children and cousins, and the first one to have anything like a love-life. He remembered his father catching Drake up in a huge bear hug and chattering enthusiastically about football while RR and Hypatia had mischievously and good-naturedly tried to sabotage their sister’s chances with the young dentist.

In hindsight he guess he wishes he was less of a shitpail. But it had been fondly meant, so he can’t seem to make himself feel too bad.

 _“Your friend does know about you, right?”_ Telah asks.

 _“Yes, God. Obviously. And he knows that we’re all different. He’s a scientist,”_ RR sighs, a smile creeping over his mouth. _“He studied me when he found out what I can do.”_

 _“What?”_ Telah hisses. _“He did what to you?!”_

 _“No, no, relax. He just studied me. He hasn’t published anything yet,”_ RR replies. _“Calm down. We’ve been together almost a year, he’s not going to sell me to the government or anything.”_

_“A whole YEAR?”_

_“Telah! Focus!”_

Telah frowns at him and he knows this isn’t over. But maybe she’ll let it go long enough to give him some advice. _“What? What else is there? I think you’re just over-reacting.”_

 _“Yeah?”_ He’s bouncing on his toes, an obvious tell, but it doesn’t matter when he’s here with family.

_“Yeah. Where is he?”_

_“Still driving here.”_

_“Idiot!”_ she snaps, bopping him over the head. _“Go be with him! You can’t just leave him alone like that! He’s got to be nervous! Drake was a mess!”_

RR winces. _“Really?”_

_“Yes, dumbfuck! Get out of here, go, before he turns around and bolts!”_

The thought hadn’t ever even occurred to RR, but it does now. He doesn’t think Dr. Coyote would run off without telling him, but the prospect of his favorite crazy motherfucker turning fear and anxiety over and over in his beautiful, labyrinthine brain without RR there to snap him out of it sends him tear-assing away from the family manse and racing down the highway to where a black Mustang convertible is, by comparison, putt-putting along at a piddling 100 miles per hour and belching Taylor Swift lyrics into the wild blue yonder.

Dr. Coyote spots him and begins to slow. When he hits 60, RR just grabs the door of the car and vaults in. The doctor gives him an admonishing look and RR just bats his eyelashes at him.

“Had a good run?” Dr. Coyote asks, stepping on the accelerator once more.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” RR replies. “I can’t wait for you to meet everybody.”

“Mm.” Dr. Coyote’s got a cigarette in his mouth and he takes a long, hard drag on it.

“Nervous?” RR teases gently.

“No,” Dr. Coyote scoffs. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel.

“Don’t worry. They’re going to love you,” RR coos.

Dr. Coyote gives him a quick sidelong glance and rolls his jaw around a little, apparently debating the merits of saying something.

“Go on. Out with it,” RR insists, stretching out in the car seat.

“Have you ever seen The Hills Have Eyes?”

“Asshole!” RR laughs, and swats him on the arm.

They drive the rest of the way in about two hours. They turn off the main road and bump across the scrubby driveway up to the houses, churning up a long plume of dust behind them. Everyone should be awake by now.

RR hops out of the car and waits, tapping his feet impatiently, for Dr. Coyote to unfold himself from the seat. When he’s finally standing upright, hands jammed nervously in the pockets of his pants, RR seizes him by the arm and hauls him up to the front door.

Dr. Coyote is gnawing on the inside of his cheek, so RR cups the back of his neck and kisses him.

“You have got to calm down,” RR breathes against his mouth. “You don’t really think they’re going to torture, kill, and cannibalize you, do you?”

“No,” Dr. Coyote murmurs, nuzzling a little closer.

“That’s right. I’m the only one who gets to torture you,” RR giggles.

“Promises, promises,” Dr. Coyote sighs.

RR opens the front door, takes a deep breath, and shouts, “I’M HO-O-OME!”

“GO AWA-A-AY,” Hypatia shouts back from the second floor, and RR swears in the darkness of his heart: it is now on.

Thunder rumbles in the kitchen.

Grandma and Grandpa are drinking coffee in the living room. They look up at RR with a pair of wrinkled smiles and Abijah and Elizabeth lift their coffee cups in greeting.

Dr. Coyote smiles nervously.

The thunder moves into the hallway.

His father is not fast, particularly not if RR’s on the scale of comparison, but for a man his size he is fairly spry. Dad is about seven feet tall and wears a significant portion of his 350 pounds across his titanic shoulders. When Dad moves around, people get out of the way.

As do walls.

So when RR shouts his greeting, maybe he knows his Dad is going to come stomping out to greet him, because he’s a big man with a bigger heart. And maybe RR knows it’s going to give Dr. Coyote apoplexy.

And if he feels just a little bad about that, he just remembers that it’s his revenge for Dr. Coyote springing his weird stupid-rich Bond villain parents on him.

“Ryker!” Dad bellows, rounding the corner and approaching with his arms as wide open as he can manage in the hallway.

“Hey--” RR says in greeting, as Dad scoops him up and crushes him between bicep and pectoral. Hypatia, Ruth, and Esther are lingering on the stairs. RR can just barely turn around and see how Dr. Coyote has edged towards the doorway, staring in horror. He grins mischievously; Dad’s always been a hugger and Hypatia’s always been a jealous bitch, so they both need to hear this. “--Dad, this is my boyfriend, Dr. Coyote.”

Dad extends a massive hand to the scientist cowering in his foyer and grins. “Ah! You’re the one the boy’s been talking about, are you? Damn good to meet ya!”

Dr. Coyote tries to smile and takes the hand, transparently terrified. Dad drags the scientist in for a hug that makes Dr. Coyote’s spine creak and his expression stiffen in agonized fright. RR has to laugh, even as Dad sets them both back down.

Dr. Coyote sways alarmingly and RR props him up by wrapping an arm around his waist. He tucks his fingers into Dr. Coyote’s back pocket and kisses him on the cheek as Dad turns to shout down the hall. It’s not quite writing MY BOYFRIEND on Dr. Coyote’s forehead with a permanent marker, but it’s close enough for him.

“Mora! We’ve got a live one!” Dad laughs, clapping Dr. Coyote on the back. RR holds tight so his boyfriend won’t be flattened.

“Dawson, you’re going to scare the boy,” a fond, admonishing voice murmurs. Mom walks down the hallway, dual-wielding coffee pots. She refills Grandpa Wink’s cup and Elizabeth’s mug, before setting one pot down and filling one of the empty mugs on the coffee table, pressing it into Dr. Coyote’s hands. “Here you are, dear. I’m Mora and this is my husband, Dawson. You must be tired. Sit on down.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Dr. Coyote says faintly. A firm maternal look gets RR to let Dr. Coyote go long enough to sit down in an armchair, but RR perches himself on one of the arms anyway.

“This is the one Ryker’s been talking about,” Dad says to Grandpa Wink and Grandma Agnes. “The scientist!”

Grandpa and Grandma peer at Dr. Coyote and murmur to each other in doubtful Spanish. RR wants to scowl.

“Would you like anything to eat?” Mom asks.

“Oh, I--”

“I’ll make you up a plate. You must be hungry,” Mom answers herself, and disappears down the hall.

“So, a scientist!” Dad says, all enthusiasm for the subject. He sits down hard on the sofa, making Abijah and Elizabeth bounce. “Ah--this here’s my oldest boy, Abijah, and his wife. Theodora? Theodora!”

“Oh my God, what?” Aunt Theodora grouses. RR can hear her skittering and braces himself. He has been waiting for this. Here the weirdness begins.

Aunt Theodora doesn’t like to walk on the ground unless she absolutely has to and sure enough she comes crawling in on the ceiling, tumbling down to sit on an ottoman with a whump. To his credit, Dr. Coyote doesn’t flinch and she looks around with a grin that belies her words.

“Everything’s a catastrophe with you,” she teases. “What is it now?”

“Theodora, this here’s Ryker’s scientist! What is it you study again, son?”

“Oh, um, I’m an inventor,” Dr. Coyote says. “And a chemist.”

Mom returns and slips a plate of breakfast into Dr. Coyote’s hands and disappears again before he can register what has happened. RR snags his biscuit and eats it in about two bites.

“Not a biologist?” Theodora asks, giving him what RR had been raised to call ‘the hairy eyeball.’ It’s softened by some bobbling eyebrows, but still.

“No, ma’am. I’m more of an engineer.”

“Oh, darn,” murmurs the Bitch Queen of the Universe. Hypatia saunters into the room and pours herself a cup of coffee. “What a shame, Doctor,” she purrs, looking over her shoulder and ass like RR doesn’t know what she’s doing. “I’d hoped that you’d be able to answer my question.”

“Ah…” Dr. Coyote mumbles.

“This is my second girl, Hypatia,” Dad said. “Hypatia, this is Dr. Coyote!”

Hypatia smirks and stands up and slithers over to lean on the other side of the armchair. “I’d hoped you were the other kind of doctor. I’ve been trying to convince everybody that Ryker’s an alien for years,” she sighs.

Dr. Coyote actually laughs, damn him, but it’s awkward and he drowns it in his cup of coffee immediately.

RR glares at Hypatia, who just looks at him with wide eyes and smiles.

 _“Don’t do it,”_ RR hisses.

 _“Do what?”_ Hypatia coos.

Bitch.

Mom comes back into the living room with a wad of bed linens under one arm. “Come on, Ryker, Dr. Coyote. Let’s get you settled in. Abijah? Go get Amadeus and Sebastian and get the bags out of the car, won’t you?”

Mom leads the way up the steps and Dr. Coyote obediently follows her. RR takes the time to stick his tongue out at Hypatia before hot-footing out of the room.

Mom leaves them in the spare room with a wad of linens plopped on the bare mattress. RR closes the door and locks it.

“Okay, so there’s something you need to know about my sister,” RR says.

“Okay,” Dr. Coyote replies, sitting on the bed. “Which one?”

“Hypatia. The one who tried to crawl into your lap.”

“Oh, that wasn’t--”

“I’ve slept with all her boyfriends,” RR says. “And not just to spite her. Well. Steve was spite,” he admits. “But only because they wanted to. Either before or after they dated her. And she knows about it.”

A muscle clenches in Dr. Coyote’s jaw and RR grins, delighted. Jealous, doctor?

“I see.”

“Uh-huh,” RR chirps. “So she’s probably going to try and seduce you at some point. She’s slept with most of my boyfriends, so I figure forewarned is forearmed.”

Dr. Coyote lifted an eyebrow. “Well, I’ll make sure not to accidentally sleep with your sister, rest assured. Your faith in my fidelity is touching.”

“Faith has nothing to do with it,” RR replies. “I’m just telling you to stay on your toes.”

“Consider me on pointe.”

“I knew I could count on you. Now, come on. I want you to meet everyone.”

***

When Dr. Coyote is brought around to the other house to meet everyone else, he meets Telah and Drake and, most appropriately, imprints on Telah’s husband like a duckling. Most of the other Rhodes spouses have been so long accustomed to their mutations that anything else seems strange.

But Drake looks at Dr. Coyote like a man recognizing a brother. By the time evening rolls around, they’re tucked away at one of the picnic tables, industriously peeling their beer bottles and chatting quietly.

“So it’s Telah, then Abijah…”

“Then the twins, Sebastian and Amadeus. Then Ryker, Hypatia, and Flavia. That’s it for Dawson and Mora. Tabitha, Dawson’s sister, and José had Amaranta, Inez, Asa, Pedro, and Pilar. Absalom’s the youngest brother, and he and Elena had Ruth, Naomi, and Esther. Jethro and Theodora never had kids.”

“And Mora has no...abilities?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I think so, but no one’s admitted anything. If Mora’s got anything, it’s some kind of psychic domination thing, or maybe just infinite patience.”

“Hey, brother-in-law,” RR sighs, putting his hands on his scientist’s shoulders and rubbing gently. Dr. Coyote lets his shoulders slump just a bit. “Am I interrupting a briefing?”

“Just clueing me in on who’s who,” Dr. Coyote murmurs. “Now, Flavia…”

“The youngest sister,” Drake reminds him. “Sonic scream.”

Dr. Coyote sips his beer with a little sneer. “I know what you mean, but every scream is sonic.” The pedantry is so cute that RR has to drop his chin on Dr. Coyote’s head, letting his fingers skate across the scientist’s collarbone.

“Hey, that’s what she calls it. I don’t know what to tell you,” Drake sighs. “I used to have a diagram, once. I’ll see if I can dig it up for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Okay, boys, make a hole. Lady with a baby coming through,” Telah says. She sits down beside her husband and bounces Rev in her arms. “Who hasn’t had a chance to hold him?”

“You,” RR tells Dr. Coyote. The doctor’s eyes go wide and RR is pretty sure he can hear his pupils shrinking.

“Oh. I. No. No, I’m sorry, I really don’t get on with children--”

Telah is like all new mothers in almost every regard. She loves her baby to distraction. The thought that anyone would not love her baby is unfathomably ridiculous. “It’ll be fine, he’s a sweet child. Here, hold your arms like this…”

“No, um, I insist, I really don’t think I should--”

“And put your hand here--”

“I’m sure he’ll start screaming and it’ll be just--”

“And there you go!”

And Dr. Coyote is holding a baby.

RR watches him, mirth barely contained. Everybody else in the world softens when they look into the face of an infant, but he found the one guy on the planet who cannot lose his expression of blind horror despite the baby’s continued tranquility.

“See? So sweet,” Telah sighs, and Drake wraps an arm around her, kissing her temple.

Dr. Coyote’s jaw just tightens. RR is sure his teeth must ache from being clenched so tightly.

Rev gurgles quietly and Dr. Coyote’s spine goes cartoonishly rigid.

RR takes pity on Dr. Coyote. He scoops the baby out of his arms with a soft, “Give him here,” and Dr. Coyote sags with relief. Older brother of three and he can’t bear to hold a baby? RR’s the third youngest, and even he knows how to hold a child.

Well, at least their personalities are in step, and on the subject of children, that’s a damn good thing. RR’s never wanted kids. Talk about cramping his style.

Whoa.

What?

“He’s very cute,” Dr. Coyote says hastily. Telah gives him a skeptical look.

Whatever. Like RR wants him because he’s smooth.

Thankfully, Aunt Tabitha rings the dinner bell before Dr. Coyote can get his ankle past his tonsils and in the ensuing flurry of whirling trays, cups, and plates RR manages to dump Rev back on Telah with a minimum of awkward dithering. The Rhodes family does not keep a strict vegetarian diet, fortunately enough for Mr. Isn’t-Fish-Considered-A-Vegetable, so although he isn’t met with a steak the size of his head a la Maison de Coyote the scientist does get a burger to be proud of.

Dinner dynamics have only barely changed since RR was a kid, so even though it’s slightly more genteel for the sake of the in-laws, it’s pretty brutal.

They’d all split up into teams long ago, and though loyalties have shifted over time, lines are usually drawn so that he and Telah look out for each other, along with cousins Inez and Pilar.

RR dashes around to snag two choice ears of corn, but while he’s up Amadeus has reached back through time and stolen half his guac. He snitches it back and frames Asa, who isn’t exactly being a saint, with his fingers stretched out three feet long to filch Amaranta’s drumstick.

Flavia has never been able to get away with screaming at the dinner table, so she just sits there sullenly, all wrapped up in icy composure. Grandma Agnes pats her on the shoulder and serves her up another helping of polenta, and Octavian smiles at her sweetly. RR’s always liked Octavian.

Hypatia’s wearing RR’s skin and trying to snag Pilar’s peanut butter cookies. Telah sends a warning shot across Hypatia’s beam, singing her hair with her laser vision. Pilar spits acid at one Sebastian’s pasta salad while a duplicated Sebastian swaps Telah’s beer with his own. One of Pedro’s forcefields blocks the acid but Inez’s portal appears beneath the pasta salad and spirits it off to her plate, anyway.

Ruth telekinetically steals half of Naomi’s polenta and Naomi uses good old-fashioned sleight of hand to steal RR’s Boca burger.

Everybody tries to dodge Esther’s influence, which would suck their abilities away. Nobody knows how she does it but there’s nothing quite like the whiplash of going from light-speed to 3 mph in the space of an inch.

This is all spaced across several minutes, since they can only get away with it in the few microseconds that the parents aren’t looking at them. When Dad looks up, they’re all sitting and chattering amiably, giving no indication that there’s anything untoward happening at all.

There is a sacred bond between mutually misbehaving children. Tattletales would have been killed.

Dr. Coyote watches this complicated dance with very wide eyes and his hands wrapped around his beer bottle. When RR sits down, he slides a hand up the doctor’s thigh, smiling at the way his eyes burn with fascination.

“Like what you see?” RR purrs, presenting him with the hard-won corn. Dr. Coyote takes it with flattering eagerness.

“Oh, very much so,” he murmurs. “I have so many questions. Do you think your father would mind if I took some soil samples?”

“I’m sure he’d be happy to oblige,” RR hums. “Just don’t ask for ‘skin samples’ from the family or I’ll get jealous.”

“It would be for purely academic reasons…”

“Nope,” RR replies, squeezing his leg a little possessively. “I’m the only one you experiment on, capiche?”

Dr. Coyote glances at the hand on his thigh with a smile. “A hard bargain.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Oh, I believe you already have,” Dr. Coyote murmurs, and takes a bite of his corn.

After dinner, the board games come out and Uncle Jethro starts a good campfire. Grandma Agnes and Grandpa Wink have played chess at least once a night for forty years. They’ve invented their own variations on it, and the game they play now sprawls across three boards.

Asa comes out of the house with a soccer ball and a bloodthirsty smile, and cruel war breaks out for about an hour and a half. By the time it’s over, RR’s got his shoulder half-dislocated and it’s too dark to see the ground beneath his feet.

He comes off the pitch with a newfound respect for some of his in-laws. Elizabeth is a biter and he can kind of see how Abijah fell in love with her.

Dr. Coyote’s sitting near the campfire, still stuck on Drake like the nerpy little goof he is. Uncle Jethro’s got his guitar out and he’s crooning something sweet and quiet while Mom and Dad sway in each other’s arms, Tabitha and José and Absalom and Elena nearby.

RR drapes his arms around Dr. Coyote’s shoudlers and leans down to breathe in his ear, grinning when he jumps. “I’m gonna grab a shower before everyone beats me to it,” he murmurs. “Wanna join me?”

“Ah,” Dr. Coyote says. He’s so tense he’s practically vibrating. RR dances his fingers down Dr. Coyote’s spine, biting his lower lip to try and flatten his smile. “Perhaps I’ll meet you afterwards?”

RR had mercy on him, just this once and just because Mom was looking at them. He darts into the house and hits the showers, determined to take his share of the hot water and boo to whomever yelled.

He should have insisted, but at the time he reflected that there were some things Moms just shouldn’t see, and he left it alone.

Five minutes later, he gets out of the shower and wraps a towel around his waist, feeling better for having gotten the soccer grime off. Nothing like a good scrimmage, of course, but between the dust, Pilar’s spit, and the mud made by Amaranta’s ice, he had been super gross.

He walks into the bedroom he’s sharing with Dr. Coyote and is frankly shocked by how unsurprised he is.

Dr. Coyote’s in bed, probably naked, with his eyeglasses on and the bedsheets riding low on his waist, and RR is straddling Dr. Coyote’s hips, cupping the scientist’s jaw and obviously leaning in for a kiss.

Except RR’s also standing in the doorway, dripping wet and watching as horrified realization dawns in Dr. Coyote’s startled eyes.

The RR in Dr. Coyote’s lap rolls his eyes and grumbles. “Oh, here it comes,” he sighs.

The RR in the doorway, the real RR, thank you very much, takes a deep breath, his nostrils flared as far as possible as his chest rapidly inflates. He’s not sure what he’s going to even say. Maybe he’ll just scream for a while.

What comes out is a reverberating “MOM!”

Hypatia slides back into her own skin and dismounts RR’s boyfriend. “ _Oh, you little snitch!”_

 _“This is weird and awful and you’re gross!”_ RR shouts.

_“I am not gross!”_

_“It’s fucking gross! You can’t steal my boyfriend! You always try and do this just because you can’t get any guys yourself!”_

_“Shut up, that’s a lie! I’ve fucked plenty of guys--I just want this one, too!”_

_“This is disgusting and horrible and incestuous!”_

_“What? Fuck off! It is not incestuous!”_

_“He’s going to be your brother-in-law! Hell yeah it’s fucking incestuous you weird, shifty skank!”_

_“Don’t call me a skank, fag!”_

_“Don’t call me a fag, slut!”_

_“MOM! RYKER CALLED ME A--”_

_“OH DO YOU REALLY WANT TO GET INTO THIS--”_

“Excuse me,” Dr. Coyote says, icy in the way only a very smart, very creative, very, very vindictive man can be when he’s really, truly humiliated. Even Hypatia responds to it, her body tensing as she hears the danger in his voice.

God, he is such supervillain material. RR could fall in love, he really could.

“Just so I’m entirely clear on what is going on,” Dr. Coyote continues, “exactly what possessed you to touch me without my consent?”

Hypatia rolls her eyes and flicks her fingers at Dr. Coyote, dismissing him. “Oh, relax,” she says. “You’re just a means to an end. Ryker should know better than to bring a boyfriend home, if he doesn’t want me to steal him.”

“How dare you--”

“Oh, come off it. He does the same thing to me,” Hypatia shrugs. “Turnabout’s fair play. And this time it wouldn’t even have been too hard to pretend to enjoy it,” she adds, leering at the scientist.

“I’m not flattered,” Dr. Coyote growls. “I suggest you vacate the room immediately. I need to have a word with your brother.”

RR has the sudden suspicion that he is somehow in deep shit. But why? He warned Dr. Coyote that this might happen.

Hypatia sniffs and marches out of the room, slamming the door. RR doesn’t know why she’s mad, honestly. The look Dr. Coyote is giving him is not the look of a contented and adoring boyfriend, relishing the accepting embrace of his lover’s family.

Hypatia might still have killed this relationship. So she has nothing to complain about.

RR abruptly wishes he was wearing pants.

Dr. Coyote stares at him for a few long moments, before covering his eyes with his hands and flopping back against the thin pillows. Even from where he’s standing, RR can see the hot flush of humiliation ride red up Dr. Coyote’s neck.

RR walks over to the bed and sits down. “Hey…”

“I swear to God it’s genetic,” Dr. Coyote groans. “Your family’s instinctive reaction to me is to try and use me as a chew toy.”

RR puts his hand of Dr. Coyote’s knee and grins a little. “No,” RR coos. “Nobody wants to chew on you...just me and Hypatia.”

“Did she do that to all of your former lovers?”

“Shapeshift? No. I don’t think so. If she did, she unshifted enough to let them know it was her. Otherwise there’s no point,” RR says.

“Oh, yes, I see that logic entirely,” Dr. Coyote grouses. He opens his eyes and stares helplessly at RR. The tension bleeds out of him and he slumps, exhausted. “I mean...honestly. For fuck’s sake.”

RR grins more broadly and walks his fingers up one besheeted thigh. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re my very favorite chew toy.”

“Somehow that’s about as flattering as your sister’s comment.”

RR pouts. “No…”

Dr. Coyote yields. “No. I’m not exactly thrilled by the prospect of being a chew toy, but if I have to be one, I suppose I’d rather be yours than anyone else’s.”

RR grins and slides up, his towel loosening perilously as he straddles Dr. Coyote’s hips. “Oh, so romantic…”

Dr. Coyote grins. “Now, where have I seen this before?”

“Ew, gross.”

Dr. Coyote smiles and kisses him slowly. RR returns the gesture, smiling when his towel hits the floor.

“Thank you for coming,” RR murmurs, fingertips running through the grey patches at Dr. Coyote’s temples.

“I haven’t, yet,” Dr. Coyote grins. Stupid dorky puns. RR can’t help but smile back, but only for a second.

“No, seriously,” RR sighs. “I get that this has got to be kind of a lot to deal with. Hypatia’s kind of just the tip of the iceberg.”

“I like it,” Dr. Coyote replies, skating his fingers down RR’s ribs. “I like it very much.”

“Yeah? You’re not all weirded out?”

“No. I’m flattered that you wanted me to come along,” Dr. Coyote murmurs, “and that you came along with me.”

“It only seemed fair,” RR shrugs.

Dr. Coyote clucks his tongue twice and runs his hands up and down RR’s back. “I’m touched that you would be so open with me,” he says. “Don’t mistake me--I’ve become monstrously fond of the way you torment me with secrets and mysteries. But I appreciate the gesture of inviting me to your home.”

Dr. Coyote kisses down RR’s neck and shoulder and RR stares over the top of his head, lost. “Huh?”

“It’s very romantic of you,” Dr. Coyote murmurs.

Ha ha, what?

“Well, it’s nothing you didn’t do first,” RR replies, sighing as Dr. Coyote’s hands scratch his back gently. “I’m only echoing you.”

“And as usual, you outdo me,” Dr. Coyote smirks. “Not, in this instance, that I particularly mind.”

Ha. What?

“I’ll have to find some way to repay you,” Dr. Coyote breathes, hands sliding down to cup RR’s ass and pull him close. The doctor fondles him a little, grinning. “I must say this is very romantic, and very frustrating. I’ll have to come up with something brilliant if I hope to keep up.”

Somehow RR’s lost the thread. This has not been an even remotely romantic trip. He’s pretty sure that there’s nothing that can make someone’s libido wither and die faster than dinner with the Ambassador and the Professor, except maybe sitting around while Grandma and Grandpa whisper doubtfully to each other in Spanish.

In fact, he’s pretty sure these past few days have contained the least romantic moments of anyone’s life, much less his, when he’s usually spoiled by Mr. Romantic Genius.

“Romantic?” RR echoes skeptically.

“Oh yes. I would even go so far as to say heart-stoppingly so.”

“Maybe I’m just being myself,” RR posits. It’s difficult to be nonchalant when a hot, hardening prick is grinding slowly against him through the thin, crisp bedsheets, but all things considered it’s a very nice problem to have. “I don’t intend to turn your head, doctor.”

“Oh, of course not,” Dr. Coyote rumbles, ever so softly. “You’d never turn my head like this, would you? First, you tease me in front of my parents, being absolutely shameless with me...”

RR arches his back a little and Dr. Coyote growls at RR rubs their hips together. “And after you insist that we rent the sexiest car available, you delight in flexing your abilities without the least inhibition. You moved from begging me to chase you to insisting on an innocent run so fast my head was still spinning in the gutter, but how could I resist when you asked for something so sweet…?”

Dr. Coyote reaches out to bite at the join of RR’s neck and shoulder and RR grins wildly. Oh, this is a weird twist, but he’d be an idiot to pass it up.

“No,” RR insists, not even bothering to be convincingly coy. “Honestly, I’m just--just--”

“But that’s not all, is it? Because then you bring me out here, where I can see so much data and develop so many questions...and then you yank that tight leash you’ve put me on and make me heel,” Dr. Coyote murmurs, a little breathless at his own words. “No samples, no interviews, and you know I’m going mad with questions…”

“Oh, doctor, no…” RR grins. “I’d never be so cruel.”

“And just in case I thought you were being obscene around my parents, now you pretend you can’t keep your hands off of me. Behaving so possessively in front of your own father and sister, keeping me off balance with all the introductions, letting me make my own connections and try and piece it all together myself. Then, that show during dinner, when you let me see what you can do…” Dr. Coyote shudders. He physically quakes, and RR can’t help but bite the inside of his lip, feeling his blood throb even harder at the transparent evidence of his lover’s attraction to him.

“Really, I didn’t intend to--”

“And then playing soccer afterward, running and sliding and dodging, you incorrigible show-off, letting me see you challenged and panting and breathless? And then you come over to me, awash in pheromones, and almost throw yourself in my lap, rubbing my shoulders and whispering dirty promises in my ear, in front of everyone?”

“Nooo,” RR insists, biting his lip as Dr. Coyote wraps a hand around his prick and begins to tease. “You’re misinterpreting, truly I’m just trying to be a good host and introduce you to my family!”

“Oh yes, you dear family,” Dr. Coyote growls, grinning as he kisses RR, hard. “So kind and obliging and welcoming, aren’t they? Especially your lovely sister.”

RR feels a chill lance through his very soul, but Dr. Coyote fondles him beautifully and he can’t help but melt all over again.

“I don’t know how you talked her into that ridiculous display, so just you can pretend to be the jealous lover staking a claim. Jumping through so many hoops to humiliate me a bit, because you know what that does to me…and doing it all naked and dripping wet, as if I wasn’t already hard enough to cut steel.” Dr. Coyote kisses him, biting his lower lip a little.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

God bless you, Hypatia. You’re the best sister in the world.

RR whimpers a little, because God, how could you not? He lunges forward and kisses Dr. Coyote roughly, running his hands down his chest. RR tugs on his chest hair a little and ruts helplessly into his hands, rocking back onto Dr. Coyote’s prick with every thrust.

“I had no idea, when I suggested a trip, that you would turn it around like this,” Dr. Coyote hisses, when RR breaks away . “Oh, God, RR...you’re terrifying, you torturous little tease…I thought I’d finally come up with something romantic enough for you, and you just wipe the floor with me...”

RR almost giggles, unable to believe his luck. Since when is just being a normal person enough to drive Dr. Coyote wild? Since when is touching the doctor and occasionally using his abilities a grand romantic gesture?

He is so incredibly glad Dr. Coyote overthinks everything. He should feel bad about gaslighting the doctor on this one, but God damn if this isn’t just the best thing ever. If Dr. Coyote wants to think he’s a worthy adversary, like hell is he going to correct him! There are way worse things for the sexy genius underneath him to think than that RR is as romantic and as thoughtful and as twisted as Dr. Coyote himself.

It wouldn’t do to disabuse him of that notion.

“Oh, but you like that so much, don’t you?” RR purrs, running teasing fingers down his sides. “You love it when I make you work for it.”

“There’s no working for it,” Dr. Coyote growls. “You just fucking decimated me. I didn’t stand a chance. I almost thought you were doing that effortless-surrender thing of yours, but you turned around and crushed my attempts without even a glance.”

“I appreciate your efforts, sweetie,” RR teases. “Better luck next time.”

Dr. Coyote growls. “God, fuck me.”

RR’s eyebrows jump on his forehead. “Really?”

“I’ve only been gagging for it for three days,” Dr. Coyote sighs, grinning and spreading his legs. “Fuck me.”

Well.

Yeah.

This will definitely do.

***

The next two days are as normal as the Rhodes clan gets. More big meals, a movie night with a sheet hung from the barn and Uncle Absalom’s old projector. An actual dance, for once, and more bonfires.

Dr. Coyote hovers behind RR or Drake the entire time. It’s cute, honestly, if only because seeing the doctor so entirely out of his depth is such a treat.

Grandma and Grandpa don’t murmur in Spanish so much in two days’ time, but Hypatia was really flummoxed by the giant smooch RR’d pressed to her cheek on the second morning.

In another day or two, they’re back East and in Dr. Coyote’s apartment, watching the X Files on the last day of RR’s vacation. Dr. Coyote’s wrapped around him with his nose pressed against the nape of RR’s neck, watching the television over his shoulder.

RR settles back with a sigh. Just a break, a humming silence. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the hunt.


End file.
